Editor jailed on retaliatory charges in Azerbaijan

New
York, August 5, 2013--Authorities in Azerbaijan should stop their practice of jailing
journalists in retaliation for their work, the Committee to Protect Journalists
said today. A district court in Baku on Friday ordered the imprisonment of Sardar
Alibeili, chief editor of the independent newspaper P.S. Nota, for two
months pending investigation of a criminal hooliganism charge, according to news
reports. Alibeili, who has faced trumped-up charges in the past, faces up to
seven years in jail on the new charge, the reports said.

"Azerbaijani authorities have a long record of
fabricating criminal charges in retaliation for critical journalism, and the
case against Sardar Alibeili fits right into that pattern," CPJ Europe and
Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. "Authorities should release
Alibeili immediately, and they should stop their years-long persecution of
him."

The
independent regional news website Kavkazsky
Uzel
reported that Baku police took Alibeili to a police station on Wednesday, where
a local resident accused the editor of having attacked him. Alibeili has denied
the allegation.

Alibeili
has frequently criticized President Ilham Aliyev and his administration in P.S.
Nota and has published commentaries by exiled
politicians and army officers who accuse the president of corruption, human
rights abuses, and authoritarianism. Kavkazsky
Uzel
reported that in a recent Facebook post Alibeili had published a collage that
depicted Aliyev in handcuffs.

Alibeili,
who previously edited the independent newspaper Nota Bene, has been imprisoned in
retaliation for his work in recent years, CPJ research shows. In July 2009, a court
in Baku convicted Alibeili on criminal defamation charges, and imprisoned
him for three months. In April 2007, the editor was convicted and sentenced for
defaming Interior Minister Ramil Usubov and served
18 months of corrective labor.

In CPJ's worldwide prison census, conducted on December 1, 2012,
authorities were holding nine journalists in prison
on what CPJ considers to be retaliatory charges, including hooliganism,
drug
possession, and extortion.